MANAGING DIRECTOR

Belinda Storey is the Managing Director of Climate Sigma. Her research focuses on the impact of extreme events on infrastructure, real estate, banking, and insurance. In 2017, Belinda coined the term “insurance retreat,” a concept that has been adopted both domestically and internationally. She further pioneered the “climate leases” model for valuing property under climate change. 

Belinda received her PhD in Economics in 2025. Her thesis was titled the “Financial Quantification of Future Climate Extremes: Three Applications in Aotearoa New Zealand.” This research created two novel metrics to quantify the financial risk to physical assets from extreme weather under climate change. She modelled when "insurance retreat" will occur along Aotearoa New Zealand's coastline and designed evolving probabilities of exceedance that enable valuation of infrastructure through her "Loss of Design Life" metric. She also holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, New York, and a Master’s degree in Disaster Risk from the University of Canterbury.  

Belinda serves as a Director of the State-Owned Enterprise AsureQuality and previously held a directorship at Pamū/Landcorp. Belinda provides advice to a number of government agencies, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Climate Change Commission.

In 2025, Belinda was a member of the Ministry for the Environment’s Independent Reference Group on Adaptation Framework, which suggests how Aotearoa New Zealand could transition to a new system for adapting homes and infrastructure to escalating hazards under climate change. She was also previously a member of the Ministry for the Environment’s Managed Retreat Expert Working Group and the External Reporting Board (XRB)’s External Advisory Panel on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Additionally, Belinda has provided expert advice on property and construction sector scenario development for the New Zealand Green Business Council. 

Previously, she was Managing Director of Whakahura: Extreme Events and the Emergence of Climate Change, a five-year, $10 million research programme funded by MBIE. 

In May 2022, Belinda was honored as Wellingtonian of the Year for Science and Technology, in recognition of her groundbreaking work in pricing climate risk.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANT

Libby is the Technical Assistant for Climate Sigma and has been with the company since 2023. Libby is also a fourth-year student at Victoria University of Wellington, pursuing a BA(Hons) degree in English Literature. She is also working towards an LLB.